The Arnold Arboretum will present When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail on Tuesday, January 29 in the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, beginning at 6:30 pm. Best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin will trace America’s fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. He will delve into the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer–a rare sea cucumber delicacy—which might have catalyzed America’s emerging economy, but also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe of such epic proportions that the reverberations can still be felt today. Hear about this period in history that preceded and spurred American botanical expeditions to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fee $5 Arboretum member, $15 nonmember. Other books by Eric Jay Dolan include Fur, Fortune, and Empire, Leviathan, and Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor. Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.
